Easter Birthday Bunting Cake

This year my husband's birthday fell on Easter. I thought it was a good excuse to make this cake I saw on Pinterest, which reminds me of a great big basket full of candy...

Plus, he always wants a cake mix from a box and frosting from a can - BORING! - so this way I could have some fun with the decorating.

Then I saw this other cake with a bunting decoration on Pinterest and thought it would be a cute way to say Happy Birthday since you can't write on the cake. It took me a while to come around to the whole bunting trend, but I think they're pretty dang cute now.

from A Turtle's Life For Me

I used a 6-inch cake pan, and used only 2 layers - so this a smallish cake. You don't want the cake too tall for the candy bars. I used a yellow cake mix, Cookies & Cream pudding for the filling, and chocolate frosting (the ready made kind he likes). We baked the cakes and made the pudding and bunting ahead, and put it all together the night before (keep the cakes wrapped in cling wrap in the freezer 'til you decorate).

To make the bunting, print the letters on whatever paper you like. You might need to try a few font sizes to get the right scale for your cake.  I used Print Shop and made a triangle as a guideline for cutting out the flags. Make one triangle and copy/paste for each letter so that they are all the same size.

 

Then cut out your triangle flaggies, and glue them to a different color paper (I used Mod Podge and Kraft paper) and when it's dry cut them out again leaving some room so they have a border. Then just tape them to some string and tie them up on a post (I used chopsticks!).

Time for the fun part!

It's pretty self explanatory, really.  After you fill and frost the cake, just stick the candy bars to the frosting around the cake and fill in the top with your other candies. I used 5 regular size KitKat bars (Twix would be good too, or I have seen people use those Pirouette cookies).

from Something Swanky

Since it was Easter I used out favorite Cadbury mini eggs on top. My cake was a little taller than the Kit Kats, and I considered putting the candy bars towards the top and putting some Easter grass at the bottom, but I knew the candies would slide since I was decorating it the night before. So instead I left the top of the cake exposed and sort of arranged the mini eggs in layers.

This was a big bit with the kids, and you could easily use all kinds of different candies depending on what they like.  I might make one for my oldest with sour candies and the kind of stuff he likes.

Sorry about (my) lame pictures, I was in birthday mode, not bloggy blog mode.  But it did look cute placed with the baskets and presents on Easter morning!